Your guide to all things prospect, courtesy of Jonathan Mayo

April 2013

With the Draft about six weeks away, the Houston Astros — owners of the No. 1 overall pick for the second straight year — have narrowed their focus for the top pick down to a half-dozen main candidates. Four of them hail from the college ranks and two are high schoolers.

Most in the industry have felt Houston would be looking pitching, and college pitching in particular, with the top spot. And three of the six candidates do fit that description. Stanford’s Mark Appel, a No. 1 pick potential a year ago, is back and pitching better than he ever has in his Stanford career. He’s joined by Oklahoma ace Jonathan Gray and Indiana State lefty Sean Manaea.

The Astros have one college bat on that final list: San Diego third baseman/outfielder Kris Bryant, who has been raking for most of this season.

Finally, there’s the two high school outfielders from Georgia, Austin Meadows and Clint Frazier, to round out the half-dozen.

There might be a couple of players on the periphery — a Colin Moran from North Carolina, perhaps — but those six appear to be the main candidates. All are in the top 10 of MLB.com’s Top 100 Draft prospects list.

Expect the list to stay more or less the same up until Draft time. Don’t be surprised if Houston keeps its options open in case it wants to be creative at the top, like it was with Carlos Correa a year ago.

One of the things I like best about Prospect Watch (and I’m not just saying this as the primary content-producer for it) is that you can read up on players before they get to the big leagues. Or, if you hadn’t done it ahead of time, when a guy gets called up, you can go and read up and then know about the guy when he’s there.

And there have been some intriguing prospects making their debuts lately. For example:

Allen Webster, No. 4 on the Red Sox’s Top 20 and No. 71 overall, got called up to pitch the back end of Sunday’s doubleheader in Boston. The right-hander seemed to manage the emotionally charged day well, allowing three runs (two earned) over six innings. Of the 18 outs he recorded, five were by strikeout and seven were by groundout. That shouldn’t surprise those who read his entry on Prospect Watch:

Webster’s best pitch is his fastball, but it’s not just because he throws it up into the mid-90s. His heater has plus life with a ton of sink, which has enabled him to get a ton of groundball outs along with swings and misses. His changeup also has sink to it and he has a pretty good feel for it.

Anthony Rendon, No. 1 on the Nationals’ Top 20 and No. 28 overall, made his big league debut on Sunday as well, coming up to replace the injured Ryan Zimmerman. He went 0-for-4, but made a very nice defensive play at the hot corner. There should be more of that to come and he has plenty of offensive potential as well:

Rendon still has all of the terrific hitting skills that made him one of the top college hitting prospects in recent memory, with bat speed to spare and an approach that should let him hit for average and power. He’s an above-average defender at third, even with the loss of some speed and perhaps a tick off of his arm following his shoulder issues.

We can even look ahead a little bit. Jonathan Pettibone, No. 4 on the Phillies’ Top 20, makes his Major League debut tonight at home against the Pirates. He hasn’t thrown well in his two Triple-A starts this year, but that’s not exactly a big sample size. Evidently, he’s struggled with his command. Typically, though, that’s a big strength. Here’s the blurb on what he brings to the table:

In terms of pure pitchability, no one matches Pettibone in the Phillies’ system, though others might have better pure stuff. With a tall, lanky frame, the right-hander has used a solid three-pitch mix with an advanced feel for pitching to reach Triple-A in a hurry. Pettibone throws downhill with an average sinking fastball that gets a ton of groundball outs. He can reach back for more if he wants to, though he’s happy to pitch to contact. His changeup is his best secondary offering, an above-average offspeed pitch he’ll throw at any time with good sink. His slider is fringy, but he has above-average control and command of all three, allowing his stuff to play up. His ceiling might be in the middle of the rotation, but he’s just about ready for that task.

In other words, if he can command the baseball like he has throughout most of his pro career, he can have success against the Pirates tonight and against other big league teams in the future. If that continues to be an issue, it could be a long night, and a relatively short stay this time around, for Pettibone.

So, wrapping up. Be sure to check out Prospect Watch and, of course, MLB Pipeline, often so you can seem smarter than all of your other baseball fan friends.

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Greetings all prospect fans. I’ve been using this space to run down top performances by our top prospects. Typically, that’s meant the Top 100.

Today, I’m going to expand it a bit, taking a look at the week that was (April 8-14) and who excelled across not just the Top 100, but the Top 20s for each team as well. Always remember to check out for news/updates on your favorite prospects over on MLBPipeline.com.

First, the hitters (rank by OPS for the week in parentheses). It was a good week in the Rockies system.

It’s a little tougher with pitching, with no OPS for the week at the ready for them. So I picked out some (definitely not all — I used only guys who gave up no runs of any sort) of the top performers from the week instead.

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Jordan Sheffield (@jordan_sheff), one of the top high school arms in the Draft class of 2013, will undergo Tommy John surgery on Thursday morning, MLB.com has learned.

Dr. James Andrews will perform the surgery on the talented right-hander. Sheffield, the nephew of former big leaguer Gary Sheffield, was ranked No. 47 on MLB.com’s most recent Top 50 Draft prospectsrankings, but this turn of events leaves his immediate future up in the air.

“I haven’t gotten to speak with him, but talking to his brother and dad, he was upset obviously at first,” said Brad White, Sheffield’s coach at Tullahoma High School in Tennessee. “Obviously, his high school career is over. I know he’s thinking, ‘I’ve got the best man in the business doing the surgery, that’s the best I can hope for. And I’ll have a new arm when this is over with.”

Sheffield hadn’t pitched since March 12, when he came out of his start after 73 pitches because of forearm tightness. He originally rested and rehabbed his arm, acting as the team’s designated hitter in the interim. He didn’t even return to his normal non-pitching position, shortstop, until Tullahoma’s opening game at the National High School Invitational at the USA Baseball National Training Complex on March 27.

He was slated to pitch the following day, but was shut down again after warming up pre-game. Sheffield had an MRI when he got back to Tennessee the Tuesday after the tournament, then saw Dr. Andrews this Wednesday morning. Surgery was scheduled for the following morning. The right-hander is committed to Vanderbilt University and one scouting director said that he was already considered to be a tough sign because of that commitment. The surgery, the scouting director said, “sealed his fate.”

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We’re starting to see pitching prospects head out for their second starts of the season and, so far, they’ve thrown very well in outing No. 2. Case in point (Read about all Top 100 on Prospect Watch and/or MLBPipeline.com) are the following… even the so-so outings weren’t too shabby:

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Since the Opening Day post about how the Top 100 in the Minors did seemed to go over so well, I thought I’d do it again, updating all 100 players, at all levels, and how they’ve fared heading into Monday’s action. As always, you can check out all 100 guys, or the top 20 for every team, over on Prospect Watch. And MLBPipeline is an excellent one-stop shopping destination for your Prospect needs.

Oscar Taveras was back home attending to a personal matter, but is expected to be in Triple-A Memphis’ lineup today.

Organization-mate Carlos Martinez is on the Temporary Inactive List. He missed nearly all of Spring Training because of visa issues. He’ll catch up in Extended Spring Training and join Double-A Springfield eventually.

A couple of notes:

* Trevor Bauer is listed as with Triple-A Columbus, but his stats are from the big league start he made before being sent back down.

**David Dahl played one game for Class A Asheville in the Rockies system, but was then sent to Extended Spring Training for disciplinary reasons.

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The Minor League season is now underway and there’s no one happier than me about it. Now we can see how all those prospects in our Top 100 perform. Feel free to peruse Prospect Watch to see how everyone’s doing on your team’s Top 20 as well.

For now, though, I wanted to give a quick report on how the 44 players in the Top 100 who played on Thursday (leaving the big leaguers out of the report) did in their openers. Rain knocked several out of action. Two stars for Opening Day — one hitter, one pitcher — are bolded.

Today (Friday), there are some pretty good pitchers taking the hill — 10 Top 100 arms:

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